Rep. Greg Steube, a Florida Republican congressman, said Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) office never called him back, despite repeated attempts to get a hold of him, until former President Donald Trump started picking up 2024 endorsements from the Florida congressional delegation.
In an interview Tuesday evening with Politico Playbook, Steube said DeSantis had never once reached out to him during his five years in Congress or replied to his “multiple attempts to connect.” He told the newsletter that he was once invited by DeSantis’s aides to stand beside the governor during a news conference on Hurricane Ian, but when he showed up, he was told he would no longer be part of the event.
Steube said, in contrast, Trump was the first person who called him in the ICU to wish him well after he was injured in a tree-trimming accident in January.
“To this day I have not heard from Gov. DeSantis,” Steube said.
He said suddenly, after Trump started rolling out Florida congressional backers, he heard “for the first time ever” from DeSantis’s aide Ryan Tyson, who has contacted other Florida Republicans for their endorsements.
Politico Playbook reported:
For Steube, the outreach was too little, too late. And he continues to have sharp words for DeSantis, criticizing him for his robust political travel schedule amid a busy legislative session and just months after winning a new four-year term.
“Floridians want him focused on Florida,” Steube said, “which is the job they elected him to do.”
Steube and Rep. John Rutherford on Monday became the latest Florida Republican congressmen to endorse Trump in 2024, following Reps. Matt Gaetz, Anna Paulina Luna, Byron Donalds, and Cory Mills, as Breitbart News reported.
Steube told Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt, “I’m happy and honored to endorse Donald J. Trump for president in 2024,” Breitbart News reported. “He’s the only person that can reverse on day one, all these disastrous policies of the Biden administration.”
“We need to right all the wrongs that have happened under this administration, fix the things that happen in Afghanistan, support our military and our veterans, and do the things that the America First agenda stands for, and that is one person, Donald Trump,” he said, adding that Trump is “widely supported in my district” and “widely supported in Florida.”
“I’m honored to add my endorsement to the long list of endorsements for President Trump,” he added.
Politico Playbook’s report echoed an earlier one by NBC News on April 12, which said DeSantis’s team had reached out to six members of Florida’s congressional delegation, asking them to withhold any further endorsements. Those members reportedly included Reps. Aaron Bean, Vern Buchanan, Kat Cammack, Mario Diaz-Balart, Laurel Lee, and Steube.
Trump is also racking up endorsements from other key lawmakers, including House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), and Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN).
Politico Playbook noted, “the snub from GOP lawmakers in his home state is particularly striking, and it’s playing into the narrative that DeSantis is too aloof and inattentive to the interpersonal niceties of big-league politics.”
DeSantis has not declared he is running for president, but the governor has stepped up his travel around the country in recent weeks.
In fact, DeSantis was in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, meeting with Republican members of Congress. In a huge blow to the governor, Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) walked out of the meeting and declared his support for Trump.
According to Politico Playbook, Lee — DeSantis’s former secretary of state — “endorsed” DeSantis, and at least three dozen Republican lawmakers went to hear him speak. But the outlet said even those who attended “tried to downplay their attendance, saying they went because the governor was a former colleague and they wanted to say hello.”
Florida Republican Congressman Brian Mast and other members are reportedly expected to endorse Trump soon.
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